


beyond rightdoing and wrongdoing

by the-reylo-void (Anysia)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Force Bond (Star Wars), Post-Canon Fix-It, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21837298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anysia/pseuds/the-reylo-void
Summary: It's a hard path to take, moving forward. But she's not alone. Not anymore. (Spoilers for THE RISE OF SKYWALKER)
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 44
Kudos: 431





	beyond rightdoing and wrongdoing

**Author's Note:**

> Fix-it fic for TRoS. Spoilers abound. PLEASE do not read if you want to remain unspoiled! 
> 
> We're gonna fix this, fellow fic authors. Let's go.

Tatooine is familiar, somehow, in a way that transcends its similarities to Jakku.

Both are sun-baked, desolate, unforgiving to the unwary. Both feel the sting of lashing sandstorms, the heat of desert suns. Tatooine, at least, has settlements, outposts, people, far more than the desperate stragglers and runners who made up the denizens of Niima Outpost, the scavengers like herself who plucked survival from the starship graveyards. 

And it has… something, some memory, some pull, something deep and real in the Force that she still can’t quantify, even after the last few days spent under its twin suns. This is not her home — the idea sticks in her throat, still, and she thinks not of her old AT-AT in the sinking fields of Jakku, but of her parents, lost and beloved, and of Ben Solo, somehow even moreso.

 _Home_ seems far away, still. 

But this place feels familiar all the same. 

Rey’s comm beeps, blinks twice, and she sighs as she lifts it and recognizes the code. “Yes, Finn.” 

“Rey.” There’s a warmth in his voice, an understanding, and she smiles to herself. “Still in the desert?” 

“Mm.” Rey’s steps are light as she crosses the sands of Tatooine, unencumbered by the usual weight of her staff across her back, no saber clipped to her belt. 

(Here, beneath the planet’s setting suns, are the beginnings of peace, after all.) 

“I’m still working on my new lightsaber,” she tells him as the white outbuildings of the old moisture farm rise up in the distance. “It’s easier to do without being wrapped up in the chatter and politics of… what are they even calling it?” 

She hears Finn exhale in irritation. “That’s part of the argument. What to call the new political alliance forming up. Poe keeps voting for the _New New Republic_. ‘Symmetry,’ he says. Whatever that means.” 

“It’s Poe. Who could tell?” 

Finn laughs, but it’s strained. Rey frowns at the sound of it. “You are taking care of yourself without me there, aren’t you? I asked Rose to keep an eye on you.” 

“Yeah.” She can picture him rubbing the back of his neck, the way he does when he’s nervous about something. “She, um. She is.” 

Rey manages a twitch of a smile at that. “You should let yourself be happy, you know. See what happens.” 

Finn is quiet for a moment. “You too,” he says finally. “Look… I don’t know what happened when you…” 

Rey stops, closing her eyes as her heart clenches painfully in her chest. “I’m not ready to talk about it.” 

“But you and him… the two of you were…” 

“Yes.” It’s short and sharp, and some part of her regrets the brusqueness, but so much of her still hasn’t processed all of it, even what little of it she’d spoken out loud to her friends. 

Finn has only seen the worst, has only seen the merciless Supreme Leader of the First Order, has only seen her with her teeth bared, saber locked against Kylo Ren’s as she fought and cut him down. 

He never knew Ben Solo. 

She wondered if he had, if it would be different. If he’d understand why she’d mourned so deeply. 

But as she reaches the moisture farm, she thinks maybe not. 

“I’ll explain it one day,” Rey says, and if she closes her eyes she can still feel Ben’s lips against hers, feel the clasp of his hand held tightly in her own. “Soon,” she promises.

“Okay.” Finn sighs. “We love you, Rey. Come home safe.” 

The comm ends, and she smiles softly to herself as she tucks it into her satchel and climbs down into the recessed living area. It’s a marvel of engineering, as far as she can tell, keeping the place cool during the scorching-hot days and shielded from the worst of the cold desert nights. 

Rey drops down with a small grunt and stops as she notices BB-8, stock-still in the middle of the room, its sensors whirring frantically. 

She raises an eyebrow at the droid, who swivels its dome back towards her and chirrups in distress. 

“I think it knows I’m here,” a deep voice says wryly, and Rey crooks a smile at its source. 

“I doubt he can see you,” she returns, kneeling down to straighten BB-8’s bent antenna. “Poor thing, did he do this to you with that bad temper of his?” 

A laugh, and she wants to cry with happiness at the sound of it, feeling her smile widen as she turns to look over her shoulder.

He’s… _different_ , from the other Force manifestations she’s seen (not that she’s an expert in it, but she’s had more than a few run-ins with the Force at this stage of her life). More real, somehow, with just the faint fade and etherealness to his outline that marks him as Other. 

“I didn’t, but I appreciate your faith in me,” Ben says. He’s dressed lightly, in a tunic and leggings, and there’s a light in his eyes that still brings her to her knees. He’s lounging on a bench carved into the hard earth itself, one knee propped up, and there’s a slow, easy grin across his features that reminds her so much of Han she can’t help but smile back. “It was exploring the homestead. Getting into trouble when I appeared. Now I think he can’t understand why his readouts aren’t matching his sensors.” 

“It’s the Force, BB-8,” Rey says gently, patting the droid’s dome. “What was he getting into trouble with?”

Ben gestures to her workbench, where parts lay scattered, a lightsaber hilt half-assembled in their midst. “I think it was just curious. You’re doing wonderfully, by the way.” 

“Thank you.” Rey straightens and moves towards him, hesitating a step away and wringing her hands together. 

Ben gives her a soft smile. “Afraid it won’t work?”

She swallows hard, aching with the need to touch him. “I’m afraid that this will be the time that it… that you’ll…” 

Ben stands, looking down at her with those dark, deep eyes that still make her heart skip a beat, and reaches for her. Rey freezes, trembling, closing her eyes and keeping her breathing even. 

Ben’s arms settle around her, pulling her into an embrace, and she exhales on a watery sigh of relief and turns her face in against his shoulder, fists her hands in the back of his tunic. 

“I’m always afraid that this time I won’t be able to touch you,” she manages, heart soaring as Ben kisses her temple, her cheek, the soft spot behind her jaw. “That this time you’ll disappear the moment I try to.” 

Ben nods, cupping her chin in one large hand, and she rises up on tiptoe and tilts her head to receive his kiss. It’s an easy kiss, joyful, calm, as unhurried as their first one had been achingly brief. Rey allows herself to revel in it, to tangle her fingers in his hair, to feel the depth of her love for this lost boy who’d finally found his way back to the light, back to her. 

Ben is the first to break the kiss, drawing her back to sit cross-wise in his lap, one arm slung low across her waist. “Did you find anything interesting today?” 

“Not so much. I’ve heard rumblings about the spaceport having an underground trade in relics, so I’ll head back that way tomorrow. I didn’t look around much when I first landed. Something…” She hesitates, flexes her fingers against Ben’s chest. “Something was calling me here.” 

Ben is quiet for a moment. “This was my family’s home,” he says at last. “The Skywalkers.” 

Rey pulls back far enough to stare at him, wide-eyed. 

“Luke Skywalker was raised here,” Ben continues. He closes his eyes for a moment, head bowed, and Rey pushes his hair back, kisses his forehead. 

“Have you talked to him?”

Ben hesitates. “It’s…” He gestures to himself. “...a process, really. Finding others who have passed in the Force. I don’t think we’re… I’m ready to see him, yet.” 

“You found me easily enough.” 

Ben manages a small smile at that, and he takes her hand, threads their fingers together. Rey turns their clasped hands over in her lap, marvels at the difference in their sizes the same way she once had on a rainy night on Ahch-To. “The bond,” he says simply. “It calls me to you.”

“And manifests you?” She squeezes his hand. “Like this?”

“It’s a reward. Of sorts.” Ben raises their clasped hands to his lips, presses a kiss to her fingers. “The Force is pleased with you.” 

Rey feels the familiar hot push of tears at the corners of her eyes, and she leans down and burrows into Ben’s chest. “I’m not ready to be pleased with the Force yet,” she says quietly, closing her eyes and pushing back memories of lightning, of crumbling rock, of a ravaged face that taunted her with _who she was_ …

Warm lips press tight to the crown of her head, arms come round her and hold her close, and Rey sighs on a broken exhale. “You’ll learn,” Ben says, and she can feel it rumble through him, through her. “You’ll learn to master it greater than anyone ever has, call it to you. You’ll train Jedi and see hard-won peace last for generations.” It’s not softly reassuring, not meant to soothe. It simply is, and she holds him tighter.

“I miss you,” Rey murmurs. “I miss you terribly.” 

“I know. But I would die a thousand deaths to see you safely through to tomorrow,” Ben says. He’s stroking her hair where it’s come unbound around her shoulders, and it’s such a gentle touch that she starts to weep. “I love you, Rey.” 

“I know.” She sniffles, pushing her hand across her wet nose, heedless of the indignity of it. “I love you too.” She lets him draw her into another kiss, wonders if he can taste her tears. “Do you think the bond will keep working this way? That I’ll be able to keep seeing you?” 

Ben shrugs, and she punches him lightly in the shoulder in annoyance. “Force bonds are rare,” he says. “Something like ours even moreso. But if we can still be here, like this, even after…” 

He falls silent, swallowing hard, and she remembers in that moment that he, too, has watched her die, just as she watched him. 

She rubs the spot she’d punched, apologetic. 

“I don’t know if it can be broken,” he continues finally. “I’ve asked, but…” His eyes go distant, just for a moment, and Rey clings to him, willing him to stay here, in this moment, this life, with her. “It’s something we may need to learn together.” 

“As long as there is a together,” Rey says, and there’s a ferocity to her voice that brings a smile to his lips, the return of a lightness to his eyes. “I’m not…” Her voice falters, and she can hear the unshed tears deep within it. “I’m not ready to walk this path without you.” 

She lets him kiss her again, a slow, deep thing, warm with affection and reassurance, and the bond crackles with energy, with love, with everything she’d tried so long to run from and now clings to with both hands. “You’re brave, Rey,” he says against her lips. “Brave and strong and beautiful.” 

“How does beautiful help me?”

“It doesn’t,” Ben says lightly, kissing the ridge between her eyebrows as she draws them together in annoyance. “You just are.” 

Rey can’t help but roll her eyes at that, but fondly. “You are your father’s son.” 

To her surprise, he merely nods, stroking one finger along her jawline. “I’ll be by your side when you need me,” he says, voice soft. “And the Force will be with you. Always.” 

Rey nods back, exhaling as Ben curls her into his chest and tucks her head beneath his chin. “And one day,” he says, hesitating. “A very, very long time from now, Rey, if I have anything to say about it.” 

Rey huffs but says nothing.

“There will be a field, in the sunlight, and you’ll see me again.” 

“And Leia?” she murmurs, closing her eyes. “Han? Luke?”

“Don’t you go getting any ideas about getting there faster,” Ben says, lightly reproachful. “I can come to you much more easily than they can and I’m under strict orders to look after you.” 

“What about when I’m back with the Resis… New New Republic.” She tries the words out on her tongue and grimaces. “Force, Poe, that’s awful.” 

Ben is quiet, stroking her hair. “I don’t know. It’ll take us time to figure out how this works, I think.”

“That didn’t stop us before.” 

Ben turns her in his lap, pulling back far enough that he can stroke his thumbs over her shoulders, one hand curving against her spine. “I don’t know that anything can, now,” he says, and the words, his voice spark something hot in her belly. 

Rey rises up on her knees, mindful of her weight between his legs, and places her hands on his shoulders, squeezing gently. “Do you think there are rules to what we can do?” She manages to keep her voice steady even as her cheeks flush. “Where we can…” 

She holds his gaze as it darkens, a hint of a smile tilting at the corners of his lips. “I don’t know.” 

Rey slides from his lap and takes his hand in hers, drawing him to his feet and eyeing the small bedchamber behind her. “I say we find out,” she says, because somehow, after all of it, pain and lightning and fire and water and hope, so much hope, Ben is still here and still hers, even from the beyond. 

If death itself cannot stop his love for her, she will not let fear. 

Ben’s only answer is to draw her up into his arms, into his kiss as he carries her towards the back of the homestead. 

\---

Rey wakes slowly, tired and sated, and rolls to find the side of the bed next to hers empty, cold to the touch. 

But there is the phantom imprint of lips against hers, of arms tight around her, of the pleasant ache between her legs.

There is the memory of her name whispered to her, strangled with pleasure, of Ben’s harsh breaths and hers as they moved together in moonlight. 

There is a soft wind, and there is the Force. 

She closes her eyes and reaches across it, feels her consciousness brush against his, deep in the space between all things. 

_Remember the field, beloved_ , she hears, and it is soft, tender. 

Rey’s eyes are filled with tears, but she smiles as she rolls onto her back, watches the suns rising at the edge of the homestead. 

_I’ll meet you there._


End file.
